NASHVILLE – We have troves of statistics to help us spot trends during the baseball season. For the winter meetings, though, ears can be enough.

Listen to a handful of club officials and scouts and you ll hear the same tune: every club wants to engage in trade talks, but nobody is pushing for low-level prospects anymore. Clubs in listen mode want young, controllable everyday position players. They want bats, and not just the ones who hit .330 in the Double-A Texas League. They want hitters who have big league seasoning, a track record of success and minimal service time. And nobody is giving them up.

Here s the odd part, as far as the Giants are concerned: they are among the teams hoarding those bats, instead of hunting for them. They can t spend a minute in another club s suite without being asked about Joe Panik, Matt Duffy, and to a lesser extent, Brandon Belt. (Presumably, everyone knows not to ask about Buster Posey and Brandon Crawford).

What a change from the days when the Giants seemed incapable of drafting and developing a hitter who could perform at or near an All-Star level. If you discount Rich Aurilia, who was acquired from Texas while still at Double-A, the Giants essentially went from Matt Williams to Buster Posey without developing an All-Star position player.

Now you look up and there s Posey and Crawford and Panik and Duffy. Hunter Pence, another core member of their lineup, arrived because the Giants had enough pieces in their system to acquire him.

As much as the Giants profited from developing (and often trading) pitchers in the first decade of Brian Sabean s tenure as GM, this current bat-heavy inventory is probably more ideal for them. That s because they play half their games at AT&T Park, with its enduring reputation as a hitter s graveyard. So as expensive as the free-agent market for starting pitching can be, they ll have more success generating mutual interest from free-agent arms rather than having to overpay to lure a big-time bat.

Call it the Aaron Rowand Corollary.

More notes on a day when the Dodgers got Aroldis Chapman from the Reds in a trade that might be expanding as I type…

–Ben Zobrist and his family visited San Francisco on Sunday, and let s just say it isn t a coincidence that Sabean, manager Bruce Bochy and CEO Larry Baer are arriving a bit later than usual to Nashville. (GM Bobby Evans arrived Sunday night. The rest will arrive Monday.)

Zobrist is on his way here, too (he lives in Tennessee), and he reportedly has a meeting set up with the Washington Nationals. With the Mets very public in their pursuit of Zobrist, it appears it will take a fourth year to complete a deal. The Cubs and Dodgers are on the periphery as well. So are the Braves, although Zobrist has told clubs that he wants to play for a contender. Everyone engaged with the 34-year-old switch-hitter expects that a resolution will come before the meetings conclude on Thursday.

The Giants would acquire Zobrist to be their primary left fielder, with the ability to spell Panik, Duffy and possibly Crawford on the infield.

–Left-hander Scott Kazmir told Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle that the A s are among the teams vying to sign him. But Kazmir is popular because he likely won t require a fourth-year commitment, and that popularity should push his value past the three-year, $45 million deal that Hishashi Iwakuma is poised to get from the Dodgers. Also, as Ken Rosenthal pointed out, Kazmir has no draft pick compensation attached to him.

–A s infielder Brett Lawrie is a name popping up in a lot of meetings, with the Indians engaged on some level. The Orange County Register reported that the Angels have shown some interest as well. As for the Indians, they are getting a lot of hits on their young pitchers and I”m told that they met with the Diamondbacks about Danny Salazar. But Arizona has been cautious to go beyond listen-only mode on center fielder A.J. Pollock. And he”s one of those young, controllable yet established hitters that everyone wants — including Cleveland.

If the Indians were willing to move Salazar to the Diamondbacks for a multi-player package that didn”t include Pollock, third baseman Jake Lamb is a name that has been discussed. So a deal like that were to come to fruition, it would effectively end the Indians” interest in Lawrie.

Another potential ripple if Arizona were to acquire a starter via trade: it would narrow the market a bit for Mike Leake, who prefers to stay in the NL West but is likely to get the most lucrative offer from the St. Louis Cardinals. The Giants don t want to give Leake a deal approaching the 5/$90M they gave Samardzija.

Plus, it s unclear whether the Giants could spend $15 million-plus on a multiyear contract for another starting pitcher if they are successful in signing Zobrist. But for now, they haven t ruled out the possibility of bringing Leake back. It”ll be interesting to see whether he would be willing to take less to stay out West, and if so, how much.

–Draft pick compensation shouldn t be an issue for the Giants moving forward this winter. They ll already sacrifice the 19th overall selection for signing Jeff Samardzija to a five-year, $90 million contract (which is still pending a physical). So if they were to sign another free agent tied to draft compensation, the penalty would be lessened because it would be a second-round pick.

That could give them an edge over clubs who have yet to surrender a non-protected first-round pick, should the Giants enter negotiations for one of the second-tier free agents (Ian Kennedy, Dexter Fowler come to mind). Once you ve leapt off the pier, you might as well enjoy the water.

–The Hall of Fame announced that the Veterans Committee did not elect any of the 16 candidates from the period covering baseball s beginnings through 1946. The Hall is referring to this as the pre-integration era. That is one way to shine the apple.